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Adam Svensson was playing Seymour Golf & Country Club in North Vancouver on Tuesday, but found himself thinking a little bit about the course he’ll play next week.

Who could blame him?

At just about the same time he teed off in Tuesday’s first round of the B.C. Amateur Championship at Seymour, Svensson received a sponsor’s exemption into next week’s RBC Canadian Open at Royal Montreal Golf Club, where he’ll tee it up alongside the likes of Ernie Els, Matt Kuchar, Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald.

It’s the sort of company that many golf observers think the 20-year-old Surrey resident could be keeping on a regular basis one day very soon.

How soon? Well, that will be up to Svensson, who after an amazing year of collegiate golf at Barry University is playing coy about his immediate future.

All Svensson did this past year at Barry, an NCAA Division II school in Miami, was win seven tournaments. He received the Jack Nicklaus Award as the top player in the U.S. and many assumed Svensson would turn pro later this summer.

He still might, but after opening with a one-under par 70 at Seymour on Tuesday, Svensson suggested that unless something dramatic happens, he’ll be returning to Barry this fall.

“It’s kind of a personal decision and right now I am going back to school,” Svensson said, before adding with a laugh: “You never know, if I win the Canadian Open I ain’t going back to school.

“I am just having lots of fun playing amateur golf right now and I am enjoying my time down at school. I am not in a rush to turn pro. I’ll take my time and see what happens and see where it goes.”

Svensson is one of many reasons to be optimistic about the future of British Columbia golf. Apart from brief stints by Victoria’s Jim Rutledge and Chris Baryla of Vernon, B.C. has been bereft of PGA Tour regulars since the likes of Dave Barr and Richard Zokol ended their impressive playing careers.

Svensson won’t be the next one, as Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin and Roger Sloan of Merritt have locked up their 2015 PGA Tour cards by virtue of their strong play this year on the Web.com Tour. But based on his impressive amateur resume, you have to like Svensson’s chances of getting there, probably sooner rather than later.

Svensson has won both the B.C. and Canadian Junior titles and captured the B.C. Amateur title as a 16-year-old in 2010. He is currently 27th in the World Amateur Rankings.

Few know Svensson’s game better than Doug Roxburgh, the best amateur golfer this province has ever produced. Roxburgh, the 13-time B.C. Amateur winner who recently retired as Golf Canada’s director of player development, thinks Svensson is ready for the pro game.

“It’s different for everyone, but I think the time has come for Adam,” Roxburgh said before he teed it up in his 48th B.C. Amateur. “He has been waiting for this for a while. He has been making noises since he was 14, 15, 16, saying, ‘all I want to do is play on the tour.’ He doesn’t have a lot left to prove back at school. He was the Jack Nicklaus Award winner and he is playing well. There are great opportunities out there. … If I were to say anything, I’d say just go for it.”

But Svensson, who plays out of Kings Links in Delta, wants to make sure he’s ready for the pro game.

“I feel like I have a lot of improvements to make, especially with my putting and my short game from 100 yards in,” he said. “I feel like down at school I am practising every single day and getting better and better. I want to be on the top of my game when I turn pro. I don’t want to go in there doubting my putting, doubting my short game, I want to go into with a mindset of knowing I am on top of my game and playing very well.”

Svensson’s game is getting a real workout this summer. He played in a recent PGA Tour Canada event in Fort McMurray, where he made the cut, and missed the cut at a Web.com Tour tourney in Halifax. This past weekend, he finished eighth at the Players’ Amateur tourney in Hilton Head, S.C.

After next week’s Canadian Open, he’ll prepare for the U.S. Amateur Championship early next month in Atlanta. Svensson appears to be a lock to be part of Canada’s three-man team that will go to the World Team Amateur Championship in early September in Japan.

Then he either heads back to Barry or prepares for the Web.com Tour qualifying school.

Svensson struggled some with his putter on Tuesday, but was not alone. Although Seymour was set up at just 6,200 yards, it played tough. The greens were fast and full of subtle breaks. If you put the ball in the wrong spot, three-putts came easy.

“I had a couple of bad approaches which left me 60-footers with 10 or 15 feet of break,” Svensson said. “Those are tough to two-putt. My two bogeys were three-putts and I played steady.”

His 70 left him one shot behind first-round co-leaders Michael Belle of Vancouver Golf Club and Spencer Weiss of Sammamish, Wash. Belle aced the 149-yard par 3 11th hole en route to his two-under 69.

CHIP SHOTS: Alex Francois, a 16-year-old from Burnaby who won last year’s B.C. Juvenile Boys title, had a hole-in-one on the 163-yard eighth hole and was tied for third with Svensson and Victoria residents Kevin Carrigan and Dylan Bell. . .The 156-man field will be cut to the low 70 and ties following Wednesday’s second round.

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